Climate Action column: A lump of coal for Christmas

By Charlotte Kahn

Monday

Dec 18, 2017 at 9:43 PMDec 18, 2017 at 9:43 PM

Don’t be surprised to find a lump of coal in your stocking this year. The North Pole is melting. Water is encroaching on Santa’s workshop. And the reindeers’ habitat is shrinking. The Arctic is warming faster than any other place on Earth.

Yet despite a new U.S. report that concludes, “Human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century,” the Trump Administration is doubling down on coal, the single biggest source of global warming.

Santa, as we know, is no fan of coal. He had hoped that with all nations on Earth committing in 2015 to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, coal would eventually be used only by him to make a point.

But President Trump pulled the U.S. out of that international accord last spring. And last week, the Energy Department sent a bouquet to the coal industry, proposing a bonus to power plants that keep a 90-day supply of fuel on site -- a bonus that can’t be applied to natural gas plants, which are fed by pipelines, or renewable energy plants, which are fed by the sun, wind and running water.

According to the New York Times, the bonus for the coal industry makes no sense at all: “Less than one-hundredth of 1 percent of power failures between 2012 and 20156 were caused by fuel supply emergencies.”

During the few real winter emergencies, “coal piles froze and their equipment malfunctioned in subfreezing temperatures.”

And when Hurricane Harvey dumped 50 inches of rain on Texas last summer, its “coal-fired power plants had to switch to natural gas because their fuel became too wet to be moved.”

So much for common sense.

Imagine the size of a 90-day supply of coal sitting next to a coal-fired power plant. Not a pretty picture from Santa’s birds-eye-view or that of a plant’s abutters. The cost of the proposed bonus is $11 billion, which will be borne by electricity ratepayers.

What really bothers Santa is that there are more sophisticated ways to handle emergencies that result in no pollution at all.

“Demand response,” developed here in Massachusetts by Enernoc, is one way to confront power emergencies. B

Under demand response, major users of electricity automatically reduce their draw during peak demand or in an emergency, saving money because peak energy is the most expensive as well as the dirtiest.

Demand response also sharply reduces the need for new power plants.

Sadly, the U.S. is blowing coal dust at the rest of the world’s nations, all of which are transitioning to clean, renewable energy.

The proposed Republican tax bill ends incentives for electric vehicles, battery storage systems and wind and solar energy and other nations are now poised to walk off with our innovations and many of our potential new jobs.

The Chinese are scouting -- and buying up -- innovations disadvantaged by the Trump Administration -- like the saltwater Aquion battery, purchased last week-- to fulfill their plan to dominate clean energy.

Other nations are ramping up their investment in clean energy. The Philippines now generates 17 percent of its electricity from geothermal energy. Sweden is on track to become the first all-renewable-energy nation by 2040, challenging others to beat it to the goal. China and India are investing in solar energy at breakneck speed and unprecedented scale.

With the U.S. suddenly standing alone in the world in its embrace of fossil fuels, you’ll know what message Santa is sending when you reach down to the end of your stocking this year and find a small lump of coal.